


Contrary

by The_Elephant_in_the_Pride_Parade



Series: Her Light, His Peace [2]
Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: 7 year old chakotay, Adorable, Gen, Pre-Series, trebus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 03:48:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18112670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Elephant_in_the_Pride_Parade/pseuds/The_Elephant_in_the_Pride_Parade
Summary: A look at how Chakotay's love of anthropology and archeology got started, and the mischief a boy gets up to when he runs out of things to read.





	Contrary

**Author's Note:**

> A million thanks to Sara_Sedai for her wonderful help Betaing this one shot!

_Age 7_

“Can’t I ride my own horse?” Chakotay complains as he’s boosted up onto the back of his mother’s. Their horse is one of five. The second pulls the cart and the third carries his mother’s assistant, who has the fourth and fifth by their reins. When he asked why those needed saddles, he learned he was at least better at riding than Commander Sulu and her friends.

But still not good enough for his own horse apparently. Begrudgingly, Chakotay grabbed hold of his mother’s shirt as they started moving. “Tano is six and he can ride his own!”

His mother scoffed. “Tano is not you, Little Mr. Mischief. When you can ride without slipping off or getting spooked by the wood snakes _then_ you can ride your own.”

Chakotay pouted only as long as it took him to remember where they were going. He strained to see around her. It was harder these days because the baby she said was coming in two months was blocking his view.

“How far is it?” he asked.

His mother pointed down the hoof-beaten road. “They beam down the supplies at the transport location three miles from here.”

“Why?”

“Because when we settled here, we wanted contact from the outside to be separate from our community.”

Chakotay leaned further to the side, looking down the path and through the trees.

“I thought you’d been out here with your friends before.”

Chakotay flushed. “Nooo!!”

She swatted his knee. “ _Chakotay._ ”

“Sorry,” he worried his lip and confessed. “Fine. We did go… I just wanted to see the starship,” he confessed. “But… we couldn’t find it. All we found was the metal sticking out of the ground – and I didn’t touch it!” He insisted.

“Hmm.”

“ _Much_.”

Chakotay bit down on his lip again. His mother was usually safe to talk to about the starship and the federation people who occasionally came through. Like when they had done the census last year. He’d followed Commander Sulu around to every house as “Junior Ambassador,” which his father had happily encouraged right up until Chakotay had started asking about the Commander’s cool communicator and tricorder at dinner. His mother had come later and answered his questions, but she had backed his father when Chakotay asked if he could have one.

What if mother told father he’d touched the metal stick where everyone said the starship people landed? He shuffled on the back of the horse. If only lying wasn’t such a bad thing to do. He should have kept his mouth shut.

His mother chuckled. “Chakotay, you are so nervous the horse can feel it. Don’t worry. I’m sure the transport station can withstand any investigating from you.”

He relaxed and they continued moving forwards. With the baby on the way it had been easier than he’d thought to convince his father that he could help his mother with the medical supply run. “Is the starship going to land at the transport station?” he asked.

“Not quite,” his mother said with an amused chuckle. “The ship stays in orbit and our supplies come down separately.”

“Good thing too,” her assistant piped up. “Can you imagine the ruckus that thing would make? I bet it would flatten the trees, and the animals would not appreciate it.”

“To say nothing for Kolopak,” his mother laughed.

It didn’t take nearly as long to get there as it had taken Chakotay and his friends last month. Soon enough they reached the clearing with the tall metal rod sticking up towards the sky. His mother had him brush down the horses and tie them to a small tree at the edge of the clearing. “They’ve never gotten used to the transporter,” she said. “Best to keep them away from it.”

“Neither have I,” her assistant laughed.

Chakotay stepped ahead of them, craning his neck to see as high up as he could. He spotted the silver looking sliver in the southeastern sky. “Is that it?”

His mother took something out of her bag; it was the wood-and-glass telescope their resident birdwatcher had made especially to observe them high up in the trees. His mother fiddled with the glass lens, put it to her eye and smiled. “You have a better eye than me, Chakotay. Yes, that’s the supply ship.” Her brow furrowed  for a moment and then she offered the scope. “Have a look.”

He did, and she crouched down, slowly, a little wobbly because of how huge she was, to help him hold it the right way and look in the right direction. He had to scan up and down a few times before he found the ship again. “ _Woah!”_

It looked nothing like the sailing ships in his books. And nothing like the boats they used to travel down the river. This looked like nothing he’d ever seen! The starship was circular, like the moons, but with two horns on either side. And as the ship moved he swore the horns were glowing bright blue.

Something beeped to his left and he jumped like a spooked horse. The glass thing on top of the metal transport rod was blinking.

“Houston, we have incoming” the assistant muttered.

“What’s a Hous-”

But the question died on his lips because suddenly, five feet from him, where there had _just_ been nothing, the air was now shimmering. It looked like flecks of water suspended just higher than his head - with more and more appearing every second. And then they seemed to draw together at the center and solidify, leaving behind a stack of large grey crates and two people with them - one Chakotay knew.

“Commander Sulu!” he said to the familiar woman as she shielded her eyes from the bright sun. Nearly every time someone in Federation clothes had come down, Sulu had been one of them.

“Your information is outdated.” The taller woman with Sulu, in the black and blue with funny pointy ears, leveled a flat look at Chakotay and raised her brown eyebrows almost to her hairline. “Captain Sulu was promoted six months ago.”

Chakotay gaped. “Does that mean you can fly the starship now?”

Demora Sulu bent down. He always liked her for doing that because, as much as he tried, he couldn’t seem to get any taller. She held up a fist, and Chakotay bumped it. “Yup, I got her all to myself after Al-Fadhli got promoted.” She grinned. “I could fly her, but my helmsman needs the practice more than me.” Then the Captain straightened and shook his mother’s hand.

“Tanaka. Always nice to have your boy about. Is Kolopak still hoping he’ll become an official ambassador one day?”

His mother gave him a teasing look. “If he liked to talk to people as much as he liked to get up to things, I’d say it was a sure bet – and don’t give him any ideas about flying, Captain. He has a hard enough keeping his feet on the ground as it is.”

Chakotay flushed. She was talking about yesterday. There had been sparkly carvings on one of the big rocks that lined the river valley. He’d just wanted to get a bit higher to get a better look. He’d only fallen once because one spot had been too slippery. “I never get hurt!”

“The next time someone brings you into my clinic as a patient, Chakotay, I’m going to remember you said that.”

“Has he run out of books to entertain him already?” Sulu asked sounding proud. He’d told her last time she was here that he’d read nearly everything the teachers could think to give him and was hoping the monthly traders would have more things to read. They always did, of course, but very few that his parents thought he was old enough for.

They were walking back to the horses now, while the assistants loaded the crates onto the cart. His mother was still talking to Sulu about him. “I think he’s already outgrown picture books. He finished everything the teachers had in his age group before spring had started.” She shook her head.

Chakotay straightened under the praise.

“I’d imagine decent paper ones are too expensive to get out here,” Sulu was saying.

“It’s my one complaint if I have any.” His mother shook her head. “Kolopak is a wonderful storyteller, but the last time he tried his hand at poetry I nearly laughed myself silly.”

The Captain chuckled. “The colony’s been on the rise economically though. Kolopak was quite proud of it when I came last year.”

“It’s working out better than he ever dreamed,” Chakotay’s mother smiled. “We’ve added a new well, done away with that dreadful temporary housing we started with, and we’ve just finished a big expansion to the public meeting hall.” She shook her head. “But there’s still not much left for traditional books. What we do have goes to the teachers. That’s enough for most of the kids, but _my son_.” She twisted to look down at him. “They don’t know what to do with you, do they, Chakotay?”

She looked back at Sulu. “Of course then they just send him off home when he finishes what they have for him. And before you know it, I’ve got someone telling me that my contrary son has gone and got himself 20 feet up in a tree with one of his shoes missing.”

His face was burning and Sulu and his mother’s assistant were chuckling at him. That story wasn’t even something he could refute because his shoe was _still_ missing.  

“Hmmm.” Sulu twisted in her saddle and looked at the woman in blue who was leading the cart horse. “Lt. T’Hain you’ll have to forgive me. This is not my area of expertise. You have two boys as I recall.”

“Indeed.”

“Do they love to read?”

“They value reading, but they are quite good at managing emotion at their current ages and would never profess to _love_ it.”

“Understandable. Then what subjects interest them enough to keep them out of trouble?”

The stern woman looked at Chakotay with the flat expression that made him squirm and addressed his mother. “Children require challenges to keep them occupied… I presume he would not be interested in the theories of quantum mechanics?”

His mother seemed to bristle at that. “Give him a couple years.”

Sulu nodded. “In any case, we can’t have a boy as bright as yours getting bored.” She mused. She tapped the communicator on her chest. “Sulu to Cena.”

_“Aye, Sir?”_

“I have a project for you, Ensign. I need it done by the time T’Hain and I return at 14:00.”

_“I have time, Sir. I’ve already got all the reports sorted and there’s nothing pressing coming via subspace.”_

“Quiet days.” She smirked at his mother. “This is why I love assistants.” She tapped her badge again. “Cena, can you go through the educational database. Look for titles that would be appropriate to… your average 10 year old. All subjects. Have a list of them sent to my padd please.”

_“That transfer could take a while given the atmospheric interference and lack of communications infrastructure, sir.”_

“Alter the frequency to piggyback the information transfer off the surface’s transporter beacon.”

“Aye sir. I’ll inform you when it’s done. Cena out”

“What’s a padd?” Chakotay asked as they rode, leaning around his mother to see the Captain better. Sulu looked much more comfortable on her horse than T’Hain. He’d thought the saddles were supposed to help the federation visitors ride but clearly it wasn’t working. T’Hain had her usual blank expression but sat as stiff as a stone. The horse huffed like he wasn’t happy with her either.

Sulu glanced at his mother who nodded. The Captain then reached into her jacket pocket and took out a flat grey thing with little squares of standard letters on one half and a dark glass square filling up the other half. “This is a padd… it’s a little like a book but with pages I don’t have to turn. We use them on starships because they’re much lighter than books and they can hold more information.

“And Cena can send more… more stuff to it. Like how he can send his voice through that comm-communi-cator?”

Sulu nodded. “Absolutely correct.”

“Can you put a person inside?” he asked, his eyes wide.

T’Hain looked over, her neutral façade slightly altered; it looked like she might be frowning. Even Sulu looked confused. Chakotay felt his face grow hot. “I-I mean that you can make people into… into those little sparks and-and send them through the transporter. And you’re sending books through the transporter so… so can’t you put people inside the padd too?”

“That would be ill advised,” said T’Hain, but Chakotay realized she hadn’t actually said they couldn’t.

“I suppose it… is possible,” Sulu hesitated. “We would never do that though. If you leave a person in a transport state too long they… well, they get pretty sick afterwards.”

“Oh… I guess that makes sense.” Chakotay shrugged. “It’d be cool if you could though.”

“Why?” his mother laughed.

“Cause then the padd could talk.”

Sulu’s mouth twitched into a smile. “Yes, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it?”

They changed the subject then. Which was too bad because he had many more questions and there’d be no good time for him to ask them. He had never been around Sulu or the other Federation visitors without his father around. And while his father permitted his questions up to a point, he often stopped Chakotay from continuing on because he felt his son was pestering people, and he also  had his own things to add to the conversation. Chakotay wondered what his father would think of a talking padd. _“Why not just talk to a person, Chakotay, or better yet go out and take a look at the beauty around us? You’ll find more meaning in that than in that little tin distraction.”_

At least his father liked Chakotay’s exploring more than his mother did. “You have a special connection to Trebus,” his father had told him after he found the chalk drawings on the rocks in the valley. “Just like your siblings and your friends will. You’re our real fresh start. I want you to develop the same connection to this world as I had and our ancestors had to the Earth before technology overwhelmed her.” To his father, there was nothing more interesting than building their community on Trebus and getting to know the land.

Except there were so many _interesting_ things than just the dirt and trees and animals. Chakotay thought of the sparkly carvings he’d found. They had looked like the stars. The same ones he saw in the sky had been preserved on the rock faces by whomever had lived here before them, and been connected to look like birds and fish and objects. There were other carvings in the caves by the river that had other star pictures and little figures building tall trees to get closer to them, just like the pyramids from the old Mayan temples in his first picture books. Had they been reaching for the stars too?

Later that afternoon, after unpacking the clinic and having lunch with the community leaders, Sulu showed him the list of books on the padd, sorted by subject. Chakotay stared at the long list of words -- all book titles. He stared wide eyed at how many titles he saw. There were a lot that talked about rocks and stars and drawing. How was he supposed to pick just one? How would he know if it was the best one? Maybe if he just asked Sulu. “I know what kind book I want, Captain,” he said as he scrolled slowly down the list of titles, still boggled by the length of it. There were really that many books anywhere?!

“Oh?”

“There’s drawings on the rocks that we didn’t make,” he said. “I… I wanna know who made them.”

“Oh, the first Trebans… I’ll be honest, Chakotay, they were here probably 1,000 years ago. We have some papers about them, but they’re all for old fuddy-duddies like me. You might like to read them more when you’re older. Some of the words are very big.

“I can look up the words!” he insisted. “And… and I don’t need them to have pictures. My cousins’ books don’t have pictures and I can read them!”

Sulu tapped her chin. “It sounds like what you really want is a book about Archeology. There’s many more of them. They can’t tell you about the first Trebans, exactly, but they can help you understand things like the artwork that they left behind.” She held out a hand for the padd and tapped her fingers over it. Words shifted around on the screen so quickly that Chakotay’s eyes crossed trying to follow them. Smiling down at the screen she said, “I have just the thing for you.” She tapped her communicator. “Sulu to Cena.”

_“Sir!”_

“One more request for my current project, Crewman. I need Title Number 31 replicated and then beamed down to the transport site in 20 minutes. Hardcover and waterproofed as well.” She glanced over at him. “I have a feeling it’ll be put to good use.”

“You don’t have to give him gifts, Captain.”

“Not a gift,” the Captain said, “a learning tool.” She smiled. “Heaven knows what trouble I’d have gotten up to without books. And you’ve got it right. No technology in the Federation beats a real paper copy.” She stretched in the saddle as they approached the transport. “Even if it is replicated paper.”

“I won’t trust a replicator with food, but I think paper could be permitted.” His mother laughed. “Well thank you, Captain. Whatever book it is, Chakotay, you’d better take very good care of it.”

“I will!” He bounced up and down excited - a book for the starship Captain was bound to be the best book ever.

The trip back to the transporter site seemed to take longer than it ever had before. _Finally_ , they were sending off Sulu and T’Hain, and Sulu asked Cena to beam the book down to her. Iridescent specks shimmered and coalesced above her hands and when the book was finished materializing, she gave it to Chakotay. It was as thick as his fist

_A Junior Field Researcher’s Introduction to Archeology._

On the cover was a person pointing to old drawings on stone walls, just like those he’d found! “Thank you, Sir!” he said to Sulu, clutching the book close.

“It is a moral obligation to aid fellow explorers,” Sulu said, assuming a formal pose with her hands linked behind her. “That book’s for age 10 and up. Think you can handle it, Junior Ambassador?”

He snapped his feet together in the stance he’d seen some of the younger officers adopt when Sulu had been a commander. “Yes, Sir!”


End file.
